


Transformation

by Askeebe



Series: Never Let Me Go [14]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Character Death, F/M, life after death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-04-19 09:59:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4742084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askeebe/pseuds/Askeebe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard choose the destroy option, and as she lies dying, she remembers the assassin she loved and wishes she could see him again.  Unfortunately, she no longer believes in God or heaven.  Even if she did, he belongs to a different goddess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Transformation

**Author's Note:**

> I was really, really, really upset at both Thane's storyline in ME3 and at the ending. I felt cheated on both accounts, and in my other fanfics, Thane lives. But as I played the game, my story Shep was heartbroken and only the overwhelming burden of duty and responsibility kept her moving. When her duty was fulfilled, she truly had no desire to live anymore. Her faith had been broken by her return from the dead with no memories of an afterlife, and she felt so guilty over the many, many deaths caused by her actions. I think it would be too much to bear for any human soul, especially one that was damaged to begin with. I felt like she deserved her happy ending, even if it was after death.

_*BANG*_

It was an effort to lift the pistol up and fire at the junction box. Her first shot went wide.

_*BANG*_

Muscles screamed in protest. White hot agony flared in her side from a wound received earlier. She had no memory of how or when she had taken the damage, but from the amount of pain, it felt serious, if not lethal. The bullet hit, but the junction box held.

_*BANG*_

Overhead, she saw the battle between the joint fleets versus the Reapers. It looked grim. The fleets were in tatters, and far too many ships were broken and scattered above Earth. She had to be strong, just for a little while longer. Millions of people had given their lives to ensure that she would be in this place, that she would have the opportunity to end the Reaper war. Those unnamed millions weighed heavily on her conscience, just as much as her intimate friends. Her own mother was on one of those ships. She could only hope that her mother's ship was still intact.

_*BANG BANG*_

They were counting on her. She was their only hope. That thought gave her strength. She straightened up, walked faster. Her gun was steady on the target. The junction box began to shatter. She could feel them behind her, the gaze of millions of souls, dead and still alive, waiting to see if she had the strength to be their salvation. She had to. She had already destroyed so many. Her sins weighed her down, but she refused to stop.

Behind her, she could sense that conniving manifestation that called itself the Catalyst. It glared at her, but that only spurred her on. She wouldn't even consider the control option. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and she had no doubt that even with the purest of intentions, over the decades and centuries, she would turn into something morally reprehensible. And the synthesis option, even if she believed its grand claims, only represented further slavery to the machines. Yes, synthetics could be alive, but transforming every being in the galaxy against their will? The very thought made her sick to her stomach. No, the only true choice was to destroy the monsters once and for all, and hope against hope that the manifestation had been lying about what would happen to the synthetics in the galaxy. Because she would always serve the greater good, and if it truly came down to it, she would sacrifice the geth, EDI, and even more, if it meant ending the Reapers and saving the other races in the galaxy, as well as those yet to come.

_*BANG BANG*_

Flames and sparks jumped out from the control box. She was exposed here on the platform, but with her injuries, there was no way she could get to cover anyway. She would die here, and that was okay. She was tired, so very tired. One last task, one final enemy to defeat and then she could rest. She didn't believe in God, or any gods. She didn't believe there would be a Heaven waiting for her. And even though she desperately wanted to, she didn't believe that Thane would be waiting for her beyond some mystical sea. She'd been dead once and there was nothing. She died, then she woke up. No Heaven, no Hell, just oblivion. She kept walking, kept firing. How many shots were left in her heat sink? No matter. She'd destroy the junction box if she had to do it with her bare hands.

_*BANG BANG*_

The junction box shattered, and a gout of flame shot out toward her, singing her even further. The flames didn't hurt. Why was that? Nerve overload? Skin already burned? No matter. She wished she could feel the pain. All she could feel was cold. Cold on her skin, cold in her heart. So many had died in spite of all she had done. It hadn't been enough. But if she could destroy the Reapers, maybe it would balance the scales. Why was she worried about redemption if this was the end of her existence? Oblivion didn't care about her sins. That only made her think about the one she missed the most. The assassin monk who prayed for his gods to forgive his sins. His absence was the reason her heart felt so cold and empty. Only ashes left from the comforting fire of their love. He was gone, and she would never see him again. Never hold him close, never feel the soft touch of his lips on hers, the way he made her feel like the most precious thing in the galaxy.

The station shook all around her, and the bridge underfoot swayed alarmingly. It nearly knocked her off her feet. That was bad. She wasn't sure she had the strength to pick herself up again if that happened. She had to destroy the junction box and the Reapers now before her body failed.

_*BANG BANG BANG BANG*_

One foot after the other, slow and steady wins the race. Was she racing to die? Maybe. She certainly wasn't avoiding it. She just hoped it wasn't as painful as the last time. She watched as the entire column collapsed in front of her. She continued to pull the trigger, but the heat sink was exhausted. No matter. Nowhere to shoot anymore. It was turning into a crumpled mass of metal and cables before her eyes.

Something hard and unyielding fell on her, pinning her to the walkway. Pain blossomed across her arm and midsection. Why had she missed pain earlier? This fucking hurt! She looked down and saw a girder pinning her down. Broken arm, probably several broken ribs. Something warm trickled down her ribs. Either her earlier wound had opened up again or she had a new puncture wound. Either way, the end would come soon.

She laid her head back on the walkway and looked up at Earth. Through the debris field she could see the blue and green of her homeworld, marred by smoke from the Reapers on Earth, but still beautiful. Her vision blurred, and with her free hand she wiped away tears. It didn't help. She still couldn't make out what was happening. Something had to happen, right? Soon? Please, God, she whispered, save them.

Immediately, she was annoyed with herself for praying to a deity she didn't even believe in. Still, at this point, she'd try anything. She used her good arm to try and push the girder off, but it was too heavy. Or she was too weak. They were the same thing. Please, she whispered again.

Her vision was turning red. She wondered if she'd taken a head wound and blood was getting into her eyes, but that wasn't it. The light was turning red. She saw the Citadel's arms open wide and red lightning started to coruscate across the surface. It was oddly beautiful.

The energy was being drawn to the center of the Citadel just above her. She watched as it gathered itself up, then lanced out into the distance. A wave of red washed over the blue and green planet above her. Naval space warfare is slow paced, but soon it became clear to her that the Reapers had stopped firing and were drifting aimlessly through space.

We did it! A smile spread across her face. All the sacrifices had been worth it. They had won!

Slipping from this life didn't seem so horrible anymore. She could feel that it wouldn't be much longer. Her fingers were numb, but she could still feel the warm wetness spreading across her back. Her lifeblood was spilling beneath her, and even if a trauma team appeared right now with bags of medigel, she doubted it would be enough. The lassitude was spreading through her body and it was getting harder to breathe.

She hoped the survivors would forgive her sins, that the good she did outweighed the bad. Here, at the end of her life, she found herself suddenly uncertain about her fate. Thane's prayer came back to her. Her words were barely audible, but she shaped her lips around his prayer. "Amonkira, Lord of Hunters, I give thanks that my aim was true, my hands were steady, and my feet swift. The worst is coming to pass. Please grant me forgiveness. Thane...I love you."

The red light was fading to black now, and both pain and breath were fading away. She could feel her life slipping away, and even though she thought she was ready, her body was fighting it, trying for one more gasp. But it didn't happen. There was only blackness.

* * *

 

She opened her eyes, then immediately shut them again.

"I'm dead."

She peeked again. A field of dull brown and gray spread endlessly around her. Scorched earth, no plants. Overhead, the sky was an oppressive steel gray that hinted at a hazy sky, but the light source was diffused and dim.

She looked down at herself. She was still wearing the burned and tattered remnants of her Alliance underarmor, and the skin on her arms was still burnt. She reached down to her side, and her hand came away bloody, but the pain had receded to a dull ache.

"What the hell?" she asked absently as she looked around for any clue to what had happened to her. "At least, I thought I died." With every direction looking exactly the same, she simply started walking in the direction she was facing. She tried to figure out where she was. She was fairly sure it wasn't Earth; the sky was subtly wrong as was the ground. Puffs of dust followed her as she scuffed along the ground.

She felt like she had walked forever. The light didn't change, and neither did the landscape. If this was Heaven, she felt cheated. It didn't seem bad enough to be Hell, either. Maybe a trauma team did reach her and she was in a coma. That thought depressed her almost more than the others. She hated the thought of being in a coma for years and years. The silence of the landscape was unnerving. No wind, no animals, no people. She tried calling out for someone, anyone. No answer.

Finally she sat down and waited. For what, she wasn't sure. She wasn't tired, which was a pity, since it would be nice to go to sleep and wait for something to change. Maybe she should try meditating. It worked for Thane and Samara. After a time, she had to admit that wasn't working either.

With a sigh, she scanned the horizon looking for something different. Her heart jumped. There was movement on the horizon.

Getting laboriously to her feet, she lurched toward the moving mass. It was too far away to make it out clearly. As she walked, the movement resolved into several tiny shapes milling about. People! She picked up her pace as much as she could, but the ache in her side flared up, forcing her to slow down again.

Finally she got close enough to see who they were. Alliance navy. Thousands of them, all milling around. She drew up short. Why were they here? Were they even really here? Some of them saw here and started walking toward her, and the rest followed like a strange, human amoeba. Something was wrong, and her flight or fight instinct stirred. Unfortunately, she was in no shape to do either. As a young woman drew close, she recognized the insignia on the woman's shirt. It was one of the ships destroyed in the Battle of the Citadel, one of the ships she'd sacrificed in order to save the Ascension and the Council. It didn't take her long to realize that all of these navy personnel were from the six ships that had been destroyed by Sovereign.

"You killed us," the young woman accused. A young man took up the accusation. "You chose the Council over humanity, and they didn't even fucking care about you or about us. You should have let them die, Shepard. You should have saved us, your comrades in arms."

She shrank back, shaking her head. "No, I had to. The larger political ramifications were too important to ignore. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

The crowded around her, each of them accusing her of shirking her responsibility, refusing to listen to her reasons. She backed away, hands over her ears to try and block them out. Threading through the humans, she could see geth now. The heretic geth that she had consigned to death and destruction rather than rewriting. At the time, it had seemed the safest option. She couldn't chance the virus coming back and infecting the rest of the geth. Better to destroy them than risk a second geth war in the middle of the coming Reaper war. They didn't seem like they were willing to listen to her, though. She turned and walked away from them as fast as she could, which wasn't nearly fast enough.

She was too busy looking over her shoulder, and bumped hard into someone. "Ash!" The burgeoning smile was wiped from her lips by her former chief's glare. "Bloody alien lover," Chief Williams spat.

"Hey, Ashley, cut that out. You have no right to disparage them. Garrus, Wrex and Tali served valiantly and honorably. I'm sorry you weren't around to see all the good they did."

Ashley was still pissed off. "Yeah, we both know why that is, don't we, ma'am? Because you chose to save the pretty LT instead of me. You let me and the entire salarian strike team go down just because you had the hots for your LT. How well did that work out for you, ma'am?" Ashley's voice was heavy with sarcasm as she advanced threateningly.

Shepard winced. That last remark hit too close to home. Too many times, she'd reexamined her motives for saving Kaidan instead of Ashley, and she usually didn't like the answers she came up with. "You know what happened, Ash."

"Yeah, he finally came to his senses and saw you for what you really were, a traitorous bitch. Thank God he walked away from you. He never sold out his honor, unlike you." Ashley stabbed her in the chest with her finger.

"Enough!" Shepard still had her command voice. "I did what had to be done. It's what I've always done, worked for the greater good. The Council and Alliance wouldn't believe me, and Cerberus did. They had the resources and balls to do what had to be done, just like me. And because I did what I had to do, I stopped the Reapers. Me! Do you know what I had to sacrifice to do that, Ash? Do you? I lost everything, and I still kept going. Who else would have done that? When my heart was breaking over and over, when the burden was so heavy I didn't think I could even get out of bed, but I did! I got up and pulled the galaxy together, and we did it."

"Really? You didn't see the rest of it, did you, ma'am?" Ashley's voice was heavy and tears glimmered in her eyes. "The mass relays exploded. Every one of them. The fleets are stranded. All they have is FTL. Colonies will go dark and homeworlds will starve. You've put the galaxy back in the dark ages. You've sentenced trillions to death. In your 'victory', you've killed more than the Reapers would have. At least the next cycle would have had a chance to evolve and colonize the galaxy. Now, without the relays, life will never leave its homeworlds. Congratulations on your victory, Commander." Ashley looked at her with something like pity then walked away.

Shepard sank down to her hands and knees in the dusty plain, heedless of the armies of humans and geth approaching. "No, no, no," she moaned. "That can't be true." Ashley's accusations rang loudly in her head, and Shepard imagined the devastation that would befall a galaxy suddenly bereft of the mass relays. Economic collapse didn't even begin to cover it. Cultural collapse, starvation, isolation...forever. Intelligent life forever imprisoned in its home system, dependent on whatever resources they had there. Each species thinking they were alone in the galaxy. The loneliness and sadness ate at her. Lost in her misery, she didn't realize a set of boots had stopped in front of her.

"Keelah, Shepard, stop moaning over the galaxy."

"Tali?" She looked up, almost afraid to hope that it was her friend.

"Tali'Zorah vas Normandy. I will have to bear the shame of that name throughout eternity."

"What? Why?"

"The Normandy is Shepard's ship. Shepard is the one who consigned my people to genocide by the geth. It's your fault that we're dead, Shepard. All of us, from the Admiralty to the smallest children still living in clean rooms." Tali's voice was full of agony. "I watched as the Flotilla rained down on Rannoch. Fighters, liveships...everything and everyone that was quarian."

Shepard stretched her arm out to Tali, remembering how she tried and failed to keep Tali from falling to her death. "Tali, I tried. I tried so hard to broker peace between the geth and the quarians. The geth would have stopped if your people would have, but they were too set on war. Why wouldn't they just listen to me?"

"Shepard, how could you even think you could stop that war with nothing more than your words over the radio? Three hundred years of war and bloodshed, and you wanted my people to stop firing in the middle of a battle? To risk annihilation by the geth?"

"But Tali, that's just what happened anyway? You were there. You know there was another path. Why wouldn't they listen?" Shepard cried in frustration. "And why did you fall? As long as you're alive, there's always hope."

"Hope, Shepard? What hope did I have? My family, my people were raining down all around me in ashes and flames. There can be no hope for me anymore. No hope for anyone." Tali turned away, muttering "No hope," over and over.

Shepard wrapped her arms around herself and tried to stop shaking. Who else, she wondered. If Garrus showed up accusing her, she didn't know how she would survive. But then, she was dead and in Hell. That was the only explanation that made sense to her anymore. The diehard atheist in her was dead wrong, and now she was paying the ultimate price, not with her life, but with her soul. If Garrus showed up now, she would have no choice but to listen to him even if it crushed her heart and soul into dust.

Yet, even now, she couldn't say she was sorry. Everything she did was because it was the right choice at the time. Why was she being punished for that? "Why?" she screamed up at the steel sky. "Why?" she sobbed.

She barely noticed the press of legs all around her. Sounds of anger, grief, and desolation surrounded her. Was this to be her fate for eternity, to listen to the wails of the damned? Why were they here, though? Shouldn't they be in heaven? Surely the entire quarian race wasn't consigned to Hell just to torment her. And did geth even have souls? That was Legion's question just before he died. She had no answer for him then, and none came to her now. If geth had souls, then what defined life?

She would have forever to ponder such questions, she realized. And the moans and sobs of those she killed would ensure she could never think about anything else.

"Leave me alone!" she screamed and covered her ears with her hands.

After a few minutes, she peeked up and realized she was alone again. Cautiously, she raised her head, then stood up. The plain was as empty and featureless as when she had first arrived. No, not quite empty. There was a single figure walking toward her. She watched warily as it drew closer.

It was a woman dressed in a flowing black dress, reminiscent of the old Greek gods. As she drew closer, Shepard could see that she had long black hair, slicked back and wet. Her eyes were completely and unnaturally black. The woman stopped in front of her, and Shepard could feel energy radiating from the woman as cold waves. She was no one Shepard recognized from her life, and they studied each other for a long, long moment.

"Do you not recognize me, child?" There was an odd quality to the strange woman's voice, almost like a harmonic or a second voice speaking along with the first. It reminded her of Thane in a painful way. Shepard shook her head.

"Look around you." The woman gestured elegantly around the plain. "This is my domain."

Shepard startled badly and stepped backward several paces. "You're the Devil?" she asked in fear.

The woman laughed in genuine amusement. "Some call me that." Her appearance shimmered, and in her place stood a red-skinned, muscled demon with horns. Shepard's heart pounded as if it wanted to escape from her chest, but before she could do anything, the demon laughed and then he looked like an old man with a long white beard. Another shift and he looked like a gorgeous, seven foot tall asari matriarch. Shepard watched in confusion as the entity shifted through a variety of forms, only a few of which were human, and even those she didn't recognize.

"I don't understand," she whispered. "Who are you?"

The entity shimmered back into the female appearance she had when she first appeared. "I have thousands of names. As I said, you have entered my domain. Every living creature comes here eventually."

"I'm dead," Shepard said for the second time.

"Yes," the creature said gravely.

"But...but...I thought...it was just supposed to be...nothing. I didn't believe..."

She smiled softly. "There's a phrase that makes its way into every species. Humans say that just because you don't believe in god, does not mean he does not believe in you. Inside each sapient creature is a spark that makes them unique. It doesn't disappear just because the physical shell ceases to function. How else can you explain your first return from my realm?"

"Science." However, Shepard's whisper was much more question than statement.

"Science had a role to play, and without it, you would never have been able to return. But it was I who held your soul safe while they rebuilt your shell." The entity's black eyes were still unnerving, in spite of the gentleness of her tone.

"Then why didn't I remember anything?" she demanded. "That's why I lost what little faith I had. I died and there was nothing!"

She smiled sadly. "The realms are too different. It is too much for most minds to comprehend. They either reject it or make up something that conforms to their cultural expectations. Take this place, for example." She gestured at the empty plain around them. "You expected oblivion, and this is how your soul chose to interpret your circumstances."

"So where exactly am I?"

"Think of it as a waiting room. A place to adjust. To make your peace if you need. It's a place to leave behind the things you no longer need."

"What about all those people I saw earlier? Ash? Tali? What they said?"

"You were on the right track earlier, child. When you asked yourself why your friends would inhabit Hell just to torment you? They were never here. It was your guilt and despair at failing to save those you loved. That's why you come here first. You must learn to leave the negative behind. Your friends are safe, and when you are ready, you will see them again, both those already here and those who will follow later."

Shepard shook her head and laughed bitterly. "Just like that? I'm supposed to get over all my emotional and mental hangups just by deciding it? If you're really a god, you have to know what I've gone through. I can't let it go so easily. I'll be here forever."

"You don't have to do it on your own." The entity waved her hand in a complex pattern, and the brown, dusty plain faded away into a windswept highland overlooking a green ocean. She immediately recognized it for the highlands of Scotland from one of her few trips to Earth. Her mother had brought her to see the home of her ancestors. The hills were covered in purple, and the intense scent of the ocean filled the air. Overhead, seabirds cried in a haunting melody while circling through an overcast sky.

It was too much for her to comprehend. Shepard sank to her knees, but now she was cushioned by fragrant grasses and flowers. She plucked a purple flower and brought it to her nose. "Who are you," she asked plaintively. "Why are you here? So many are dead. Why are you talking to me?"

The woman sat gracefully next to her. "Why can I not speak to many at once? Still, I admit that I do not usually come so quickly to the newly arrived. Most are able to make their transition easily. You have lived through more than most, and taken decisions that have left deep scars on your psyche. But more than that, I am come at the behest of one whose heart is pure and whose love is strong. It is for his sake that I come to you now. He waits for you, child. Do you not wish to go him?"

Shepard's breath sped up and she crushed the purple flower unthinkingly. "Thane," she breathed. "Then, does that make you...Kalahira?"

The goddess nodded and her shape shimmered one more time into a drell woman with midnight blue skin and silver patterns on her skin. "It is one of my names, and that used by him who loves you. Even now, he sits by the ocean waiting for his siha. So I ask again, will you go to him?"

She shot to her feet and ran to the cliff's edge. She looked out over the ocean, hoping to see him, but all that met her gaze was the endless roll of the waves. She turned back to Kalahira in mixed hope and despair. "How?"

"You must let go the past. Let go of that which ties you here. Your work there is done."

"But...but what about what Ashley said? Did I really turn the galaxy back to a dark age by destroying the relays?"

Kalahira rose to her feet, displaying that same lithe grace that Thane had. "No, child. That was your fear speaking. Look." She nodded toward the sky. The storm clouds faded into the black of space with Earth in the foreground. Reapers floated derelict in Earth's orbit. The Citadel was still in orbit, its five arms looking singed but intact. The view shifted out to the Charon relay to show ships flickering through in bursts of dark energy. The view shifted to other relays, showing the same scenes: derelict Reapers, ships returning home, and entire planets celebrating.

"Please, can I just see...please...my friends?"

The goddess smiled and the sky changed again. She saw Garrus swathed in bandages but alive. One taloned hand covered his face as his shoulders shook with unheard sobs. He was obviously mourning, and she knew why. "I'm so sorry, Garrus. I'll save you a seat at the bar..." The rest of her sentence was cut off by the sudden appearance of a completely out-of-place tiki bar that should have been on a tropical island.

"You're doing better than I thought," the goddess commented.

"What do you mean?" she asked, still staring at the palm tree standing amidst the heather.

"You control your environment here. I picked Scotland from your memories, but this bar is all your imagining."

Shepard blinked and decided to ignore the oddity in favor of seeing her other friends. She saw her mother in a medbay, Joker and EDI repairing the Normandy, Kaidan sitting behind Anderson's desk with his head in his hands. Others flickered by, many lives that she'd touched. So many that would live now, all of them free from the Reapers' shadow. It had been worth it.

With a relieved sigh, she turned back to the drell goddess. "Thank you."

Kalahira replied with a regal nod of her head. "Are you ready?"

Shepard nodded. "Only, I don't know what to do."

"You do, in your heart," the goddess told her. "You must come to the ocean. Give yourself to me and be transformed. Then you will be reunited with your love." She touched the top of Shepard's head in a gentle, loving gesture, then simply faded away.

Shepard stood in front of the tiki bar and looked out over the ocean. How had Thane described it? Cold and completely unlike what we knew, but full of life. He was waiting for her, and it was up to her to finish the journey.

She walked to the bar and pulled out the bottle of turian whiskey she knew would be there. She poured a shot and set it on the bar. "I hope you find this when you get here, Garrus. Until then, live well."

She briefly toyed with the idea of staying and trying to manipulate the landscape to her whim, but she recognized the fear of the unknown in her procrastination. No time like the present, she thought, then laughed at herself. She probably had all the time in the world. How long would it take for her to unlearn such useless phrases?

The ocean churned angrily against the cliff base as she peered over the edge. There would be no climbing down the cliff. There was only one way into Kalahira's embrace. Her heart clenched and her knees shook as she thought about taking that dive. Her mind told her that she'd be broken and crushed against the rocks at the base of the cliff. Did she really have the faith in an alien goddess to trust herself to what looked like certain and painful death? How many times could she die, anyway?

She settled down on the edge of the cliff, her legs dangling over the edge and kicking the crumbling cliff face. Tiny shards of stone rattled down the cliff to disappear silently into the waves. Was it oblivion down there? She turned her attention back to the sky. Storm clouds and a setting sun had replaced Kalahira's vision of earlier. Other than the seabirds, the landscape was devoid of animate life, but unlike when she had first awakened here, she could feel flow and pulse of life's energy around her. It was in the wind playing with her hair and sea grasses alike. It was in the bits of heather that floated by. It was in the scent of salt, kelp and fish that hung in the air. It was in the shafts of sunlight that played across the stormy, white-capped ocean spread out before her. It was beautiful.

The sun seemed to hang low in the sky forever, painting it with shades of orange and pink around the stormy blue and gray clouds. Looking behind her, she saw the first star of evening on the opposite horizon. It was comforting to know the stars were here as well. She wondered if Thane was watching her, waiting to see if she had the courage to leap into Kalahira's realm. Her imagination conjured images of him, some from memories, some made up dreams. The one that held her attention most was of him standing in the surf across this unimaginably large ocean, waiting for her to come to him.

Faith in an alien goddess she didn't have. But she had faith in Thane. She stood up and dusted off her clothes, which had morphed at some point into a pair of casual khakis and plain white t-shirt. The lethal wound in her midsection was gone, and she felt like she could run forever. Could she fly, she wondered?

She closed her eyes and tipped her head to the sun, feeling its warmth on her face, contrasting with the wind's chill on her back. A time and place to let go, hm? "Good bye, Kaidan. I'm sorry for our rift. Wrex, Grunt, I hope you're both blessed with beautiful babies." There were so many to say farewell to. She saved the hardest one for last. "Garrus, I'm so sorry I left you. You were the one person who could still make me smile...after...after he died. You're the only one I truly am sorry to be leaving behind, and I'm sorry for the pain I'm causing you again. I hope you can forgive me for not living, but my heart is elsewhere, and I just couldn't stay any longer. I'll be waiting for you at the bar, okay?"

She backed up several steps, then ran and dived off the cliff.

The air rushed past her face. She closed her eyes and thought of Thane. Her gorgeous green-skinned assassin with the hands of a killer and the soul of a poet. Images flashed through her mind. Thane dropping from Nasana's ceiling and dealing death with breathtaking grace and speed. Sitting across from her in Life Support. Dirty and singed after a mission, but triumphant. Tears trailing over his face as he admitted his fear of dying. His body moving against hers in the darkness. That was the thought she carried with her as she fell into the ocean.

The cold shocked her breath away, and she fought her body's instinct to draw breath as she sank into the unlit depths. Her lungs were screaming for oxygen as she thrashed around in the water.  _Not again!_ Was she destined to die of suffocation over and over? Salt water burned in her sinuses and eyes as she clawed for the surface, but she just kept sinking.

" _Siha, just let go."_

Maybe she was hallucinating his voice. All she could hear was the frantic pounding of her heart. She could deny the demands of her body no longer. She gasped...and breathed. The ocean supported her with the comforting, if cold, feeling of water, but she could breath. She quickly breathed again, just for the pleasure of breathing.

Now she could focus on her surroundings. The water wasn't as dark as she thought. Tiny pinpricks of light glowed all around her, vaguely illuminating strange shapes only half seen. She stopped falling and instead felt herself moving with the current. There was nothing left for her here. No mission, no war, no responsibilities. Even Thane was but a promise of something yet to come. For the first time in many years, she felt like she could truly lay down her burdens. Her life was behind her. Her future was unknown. There was only her. She wasn't giving up; she was giving in.

For the first time in years, she felt moved to pray. "Deliver me." She lay back and gave herself to the arms of the ocean.

* * *

Golden light rippled over her. It was the first new sensation she could remember in a very long time. She opened her eyes and was disoriented. She was in shallow water looking up at the waves crashing overhead. Suddenly she felt the need to breathe air again. She struggled to the surface and gasped in clean, fresh air just in time for a breaker to crash over her head and send her tumbling down against the sandy bottom. Again she struggled to the surface and saw the shore just a few feet away. She choked on a mouthful of salt water and tried to time her breathing to coincide with the troughs of the heavy waves. She didn't know how to swim, and the waves kept knocking her off her feet.

Suddenly there was a strong pair of hands around her waist, and she felt a hard body press against her back, shielding her from the waves.

"I have you, siha."

That low rumbling voice made her heart soar. "Thane!" She tried to turn around, but he held her fast and walked them both to the shore. He let her go only long enough to turn and face him, then he crushed her against him as if he never planned to let her go again. She did the same, holding on so tightly she felt like she was trying to meld into his body. "Thane, Thane," she was crying. "You're really here."

"I promised I would wait for you across the sea, my love."

The tears running down her face mixed with the seawater on her cheeks. She was crying and laughing at the same time as she pulled back just enough to cup his face in her hands. She ran her fingers over his cheek and down the soft velvet of his neck ribbing. He looked so good. He looked healthy and strong.

For his part, Thane was peppering her face with delicate kisses and murmuring soft adorations. "I prayed for you," he whispered.

"I know," she whispered back. "Kalahira told me."

He drew back in astonishment. "You saw her?"

She nodded. "She said she came because of you. Because of your love. You saved me, Thane," she whispered as she kissed him again. He tasted of salt and tears and the alien coffee and spice mixture that was uniquely him.

Tears were flowing down his cheeks, reminding her of that night that seemed so long ago. Only this time, he was the one gathering her in his arms, lending her his strength. It started to dawn on her that finally they were together, without the threat of war or illness looming over them. She buried her face in his neck and cried in joy.

"Never let me go," she whispered.

"Never," he returned fiercely.

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> The imagery for this story is heavily inspired by the song "Never Let Me Go" by Florence and the Machine. When I hear it, I think of Shepard being saved by Thane's faith and love for her.


End file.
